


Enough

by thecurlyginger



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecurlyginger/pseuds/thecurlyginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly Hooper takes a moment to notice everything around her after Sherlock's fall, everything that's going on, and decides she can only stand idly by for so long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Sherlock fic, and I wrote it while waiting for some flights and running on no sleep for almost 30 hours. I just needed to get this plot bunny out of my head! All mistakes are mine, unless you want them, of course!

Molly Hooper has never been this nervous working with a corpse before, but then again, she's never worked with a living one. Perhaps that's not the correct classification for Sherlock Holmes, but for all intensive purposes, that man is dead. Cause of death: suicide. And yet he's in her bathroom, probably staining her white sink with the blood he's washing off his face. His own blood, apparently, but Molly tries not to think about why he has so much of his own blood available on hand.

 

In fact, she's trying hard not to think about this mess she's in. She wanted to help him because, despite all the times Sherlock Holmes broke her heart or openly embarrassed her, she considered him a friend and the look of sadness and defeat on his face hit too close to home. Molly shakes off thoughts of her father. Best to not worry about too many corpses at once, especially ones that are actually buried.

 

Molly instead changes into her pajamas. Sherlock told her he'd explain everything but she insisted he at least clean up first. He nodded but appeared willing to have a nice chit-chat about his fake death while still covered in blood and grime. She shakes her head at her taste in men while applying what is probably too much deodorant, but considering she's shaking and nervous and, yep, perspiring already, she can't be too sure. Her thongs clap against the soles of her feet as she makes her way over to the kitchen. Tea or coffee? Probably coffee – she'll need to be alert and focused – and it's probably best to make Sherlock some too. It's hardly a _hassle_ to leave some in the pot for him after helping him fake his own death.

 

No milk or sugar for her tonight. She takes her bitter drink with her as she goes to get some air outside her flat. The warmth radiating from her mug is soothing her shaking hands, though not much. Molly doubts there's anything else she can do. It's unlikely that “how to relax when you've faked a coroner's report” has many results on Google. She takes a small sip, the light burning on her tongue enough to force her awake.

 

The door's ajar, but she can hardly concern herself with cold air getting into the flat. She has bigger issues, but she forgoes thinking about them momentarily and instead watches a young woman talking animatedly on her mobile. Molly can't hear the conversation yet, but the woman's practically skipping while waving her hands. Molly figures it's good news and smiles lightly once the talker goes past – apparently she's been accepted to law school. Good for her. The sound of the water turning off brings Molly back inside and distracts her from congratulating herself on her correct deduction. Probably for the best.

 

–

 

A whole week has gone by, and Sherlock's still in her flat, making a mess of her bathroom and her life. Molly's patience is wearing thin which is really saying something, considering this is Molly Hooper and the main acknowledgement in her yearbook was that she was the friendliest of her class. He's explained the basis of his plan, taking down Moriarty's crime web, as well as what brought him to the need to fake his own death in the first place in limited detail to save her from “blurting it out” (his words). The only thing he emphasized and repeated was that she couldn't tell anyone that he was still alive. She nodded the first time. Sighed “yes” the second. But by the third insistence of her silence when she never actually argued against it, she pushed out “of course” through clenched teeth.

 

Molly understands the importance of what Sherlock is doing; she's just also certain that he doesn't see how much this disturbs her. Every phone call, every visit from Scotland Yard's finest puts her on edge. So when the phone rings and John Watson is on the other end, Molly looks at Sherlock with eyes akin to a deer caught in the headlights. Sherlock forces a nod for her to converse normally, though receiving a call from John is so rare that the abnormality of it shakes her, not to mention the sadness in Sherlock's eyes that never left has suddenly increased tenfold and stuns her into silence. The ex-army doctor tersely tells her about Sherlock's funeral on Saturday. It's a small gathering, no wake. It breaks Molly's heart to hear John speak without soul, without the humanness that helped ease the edge off of the consulting detective he accompanied.

 

“Of course I'll be there,” Molly wheezes out eventually, avoiding the judgmental stare aimed at her for not acting naturally. She hangs up quickly, suddenly needing air, and is halfway to the door when the phone rings again. Molly panics, certain it's John calling back to inform her that he knows she's keeping Sherlock there, that he saw, or rather heard, through her plot. Sherlock promptly informs her that she should A.) get caller ID and B.) quit overreacting and just pick up the phone.

 

Her shaking hand picks up the receiver. “Hell-Hello?” Sherlock pointedly glares at her again.

 

“Molly? It's Greg Lestrade.” She all but lets out a well-deserved sigh of relief.

 

“Oh, um, hi Greg.” She can hear the nervousness in her voice which is doing nothing to help. Sherlock looks as shocked as Molly thinks he's capable of (which isn't very) about the caller as well.

 

Greg clears his throat. “I just got off the phone with John-”

 

“Yeah, me too.”

 

“-and I wanted to see how you're, uh, how you're doing.”

 

Molly begins pacing around, occasionally glancing back to Sherlock who is clearly analyzing the situation. “I'm okay. Just, you know, getting through it.” She's comforted by the fact that she's not actually lying, though not too comforted.

 

Greg hums in agreement. “Do you think that maybe... I could... erm...give you a ride on Saturday since you're on the way and all? _Christ_ , I mean, it's the least I can do because God knows I have no clue how to help John when he's just forgiven me.” She looks back to Sherlock.

 

“A ride? I don't-” Sherlock nods at her. She looks confusedly at him. He mouths “yes, act _naturally_ ” at her as overly articulated as possible. Her eyes are wide. “Actually, yes. Yes, a ride would be just love – ah – lovely.” Sherlock rolls his eyes at her. Molly arranges plans with Greg (when exactly did he stop being _just_ Lestrade?) and hangs up and quickly as possible.

 

Sherlock returns to the laptop he's been typing furiously in all morning but doesn't miss the opportunity to throw in “Nicely done. I'm glad you're handling basic communication and carpooling _this_ well.”

 

Molly tries to consider that he's using his typical sarcasm to hide his own hurt but anger pulses through her veins regardless. “Why the-” she stops herself from swearing, barely. “Why would I have Greg-”

 

“For God's sake! It's _LESTRADE_!”

 

“-come over to my flat when we're trying to convince the world you're dead?” She can tell Sherlock is mildly amused by her barely contained outburst, but he waves it off.

 

“I'll be gone by then.”

 

“You're not...” She stops herself from finishing the question.

 

Sherlock actually laughs. “Of course I'm not staying for my own funeral! I may be a sociopath, but I can hardly care less about who tears up at the sight of a wooden box. It's trivial sentiment. It doesn't matter.” He returns to typing and Molly doesn't question him further.

 

–

 

The car ride on Saturday is awkward, more so because Molly is paying attention to Greg's body language. She's not sure when she picked up this skill, if it can even be called that. If anything, she's just noticing things she typically overlooks. Perhaps being around Sherlock so long has affected her. The thought makes her frown slightly. Greg looks at her again from the corner of his eye while driving.

 

She misses her blissful ignorance. No... maybe not, but she misses a time when she could just sit and talk to Greg, maybe even John or Mrs. Hudson when they're around. Molly has been trying to avoid them and Greg for obvious reasons, and the former two are easier to dismiss when John has so business in the morgue and Molly has no business in 221B Baker Street anymore. But Greg pops in at St. Bart's when there's a case. He's all sad smiles and gentle questions, which she catalogues as sweet somewhere in the back of her head, while the foreground of her mind is screaming _Don't tell him!_

 

Molly breathes out slowly through her lips, her eyes slipping shut for a moment. When she opens them again, she turns to Greg. He's concentrating on driving in his black suit that has seen better days (and probably countless funerals before this one). His fingers are wiggling on the wheel, and that draws her attention to his left hand where a tan line shows his wedding ring is gone. Sherlock would blurt the fact out. Molly is content with leaving the questions unanswered in her head.

 

“Divorced,” Sherlock told her once while they examined a body that had received blunt-force trauma to the head on the day she first set eyes on the world's only consulting detective. He had already impressed her by reciting nearly her entire life story from her clothing and the contents of her office.

 

She was so smitten she wanted to impress him. Eyes practically squinting, she stared down the body. “Could you tell by recent weight loss from stress? Or... oh! Tobacco residue because he just started smoking again!”

 

He looked at her like she was crazy and pointed down at a lifeless hand. “Tan line from the ring.” And then he was off pacing around the body, naming off more fantastic things.

 

Greg is nothing like Sherlock, Molly decides. Of course, no one is like Sherlock, but Molly needs to make this separate distinction for her own sake. Greg is kind and maybe finally leaving his cheating wife, but he is, most definitely, off limits. She has to think of Sherlock but notes that it's really for Greg's own good as well. Sherlock made it perfectly clear that Moriarty's men would kill the detective's closest friends if Sherlock lived.

 

She keeps this in mind as Greg touches the small of her back to steady her on grass that she really shouldn't be wearing heels in. She remembers this as her heart breaks when looking at Greg's sad eyes when John says, “No matter what others may believe, Sherlock Holmes was –  _is_ – a good man.” 

 

Molly is a crap liar. She sure as hell isn't a consulting detective. But she has heart and wants to protect Greg Lestrade if it's the only thing she can do while keeping the secret that is hurting everyone around her.

 

–

 

On the way back to Greg's car, Molly is mentally rewording what she's going to say to him when she sees two friends...no...lovers... rushing toward each other and embracing. While she could never deduce Sherlock and John's relationship (she doubts even they could), she's steadfast in the belief that when Sherlock returns, because she's certain he  _is_ returning when all of this is over, the two will embrace thusly. 

 

It's that thought that causes her to take in a breath that straightens her posture and turn to Greg who appears startled to see her take such a strong stance. Molly Hooper is keeping one of the world's biggest secrets, but she isn't going to stop that from letting her, or those she's sworn to protect, be happy. “I have just enough coffee in my place for two.”

 

Greg's face lights up some. “Are you sure?”

 

“Yes. I know it isn't much but-”

 

He opens her car door for her. “I don't expect a lot right now.”

 

“Is coffee and a promise for more... later enough?”

 

He needs no further convincing.


End file.
